J Street, Walt and Mearsheimer, and Jewish Martyrdom

The Nation's Eric
Alterman recently wrote
that, in the United States,
"right-wing Jewish organizations and neoconservative pundits dominate nearly
all Middle East discussion." This is a pretty
radical claim, one I don't agree with--recent cover stories in both Time
and Newsweek have reflected the J
Street line -- but one for which you could produce at least some evidence. The
sum total of the evidence he did produce was three blog posts appearing in,
respectively, The New Republic, The Weekly Standard, and Commentary. Alterman, perhaps using
hyperbole to compensate for the lack of evidence, called the authors "Thought
Police." You may recall that the term "Thought Police" was coined by George
Orwell's "1984" to describe a breed of futuristic secret police that would
exceed even the draconian methods employed by Stalin and Hitler. Apparently
Alterman believes equivalent powers are now wielded by a handful of Zionist bloggers.
I'm trying to imagine what Alterman would say if fascism really does come to America.
Perhaps he'll think to himself, while hanging from his thumbs in some dungeon,
"Well, this is pretty bad, but not as bad as when I was criticized by
Commentary online."

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